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Today I dropped Bill off at 7 AM at the Convention Center in Honolulu. Luckily the brain is still on Wisconsin time so was up at 4 AM anyway. It's a holiday here and apparently there are many holidays that we don't really celebrate. Today is veterans day, the kids are off school and many are not at work. (The kids ony get 5 weeks summer vacation what with all these days off.) So there wasn't much traffic. That's good as it gets pretty dang busy I guess.
I just let the car try to get itself back to H1 (the interstate) without the GPS as it wouldn't work. (I forgot the antenna part!) Addly enough, it worked! I wanted to take the H3 back to the other side of the island as it cost $10 million/mile to build and is pretty impressive engineering-wise. That done, I figured I'd drive north and visit the Polynesian Cultural Center (run by the Mormons - go figure.) After I found out it doesn't open until noon, it cost $80 and I would get to spend a grand total of 4 hours learning about a culture with 9 zillion other tourists, I decided to keep going. Stopped a few times and shot some pictures, listened to oldies (no talk radio!) and drove and drove. The waves ended up pretty flat and the surfers up north were doing no better with the waves as they were in Kailua.
This was a long drive with a few nice views. The road hugs the beach in most places and you chug along at 25-35 mph. It was pretty early so not much traffic but also, not a whole lot to see or do. The beach side was frequently lined with homes, many not so picturesque! The other side of the road was either commercial or scrub. If this doesn't sound appealing, well, let's say the guidebook oversold this area.
I did pass the hotel I stayed at 30 years ago and it's still pretty darn nice. Also stopped at a tourist trap/macademia nut outlet and got some crackerjacks with mac nuts. Lunch.
So I found a mall, bagged one of the only open parking spots and bought books. Horridly busy. Reminded me of Manassas! The GPS got me home where I chatted with the landlady's sister for an hour (she's watching her niece while she's in Italy!) That was actually just as nice as the drive.
I didn't expect Oahu to be the high point of the trip so I'm not disappointed. I did call for reservations for the kayak trip and they are full. I'm first if they have a cancellation. The guy sounded super-nice and they do have room tomorrow but Dad is done at 2:30 and we can do some site-seeing together I hope.
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